What is essential learning?

1. “How do we fit it all in? Our curricula are just too large….it becomes, covering rather than uncovering”Perhaps the best first step is taking a closer look at our curricula, and determining the essential learning outcomes. “when everything is important, nothing is important” (Manitoba Rural Learning Consortium)

2. What is essential learning? “Essential learning…the critical skills, knowledge, and dispositions each student must acquire as a result of each course, grade level, and unit of instruction.” Dufour/Dufour/Eaker/Thomas (from mRLC) What is the intent?--- To use the new Provincial Report Card as an opportunity to revisit curricula and to re-organize outcomes conceptually using essential learning and report card categories as the criteria. Task? To create user friendly documents that would support teacher teams in quality planning, teaching, assessing and reporting. Principals have copies of Essential Learning documents for grades 1-8 in 3 core subjects, as well as Gd. 9/10 Science, Gd 9/10 Intro to Pre-Calc and Applied Math, Gd 12 Pre-Calc, and Applied Math. All senior years ELA should be available shortly. Remaining senior years Math, Sciences, and SS will be worked on this year.

3. The mRLC Documents What they are… • Draft guide documents to support teacher teams in quality planning, teaching, assessing and reporting • Examples of how teachers can use curricula • Vehicles to support professional learning teams What they are not… • Replacements for curricula • Culling or paring down of curricula outcomes

4. So how does the Provincial Report Card fit? • The Provincial Report Card is optional in Manitoba for this school year, although Fort La Bosse has opted in divisionally. • We do have the luxury of having Elkhorn School who was an unofficial pilot school last year, and they did complete them in Maplewood, so we are certainly benefiting from that school’s experience.

5. Manitoba’s Vision…. • “that every learner will complete a high school education with a profound sense of accomplishment, hope, and optimism.” (p.3, Manitoba Report Card Support Document, Partners for Learning, Grades 1-12, DRAFT September 2012)

6. The Report Card Templates… • Word documents of these templates; Grade 1-6, 7-8, and 9-12 are available online as well as the support document which all staff should become very familiar with. Grades 1-8 breaks down each subject area into subject categories—knowledge and skill areas within each subject. Grades 1-6—4 point scale, Grades 7/8-4 pt. scale and % score, 9-12-% score only. • http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/assess/report_card.html

7. Foundational Principles for Grading • -Reminder that along with the Report Card Support document, all other assessment documents are still very relevant, ie Provincial Assessment Policy-Academic Responsibility, Honesty, and Promotion/Retention, Communicating Student Learning, and Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind as well as our own FLB documents.

8. Foundational Principles of Grading… • The process of grading is complex and does require one’s professional judgement, however there are principles indicated in the following areas that do reflect best practice: • Accurate • Meaningful • Consistent

9. Accurate • Based on curricular learning outcomes • Non-academic factors such as attitude, effort and behavior are not included in the determination of students’ grades. • Grades should reflect a student’s most recent and consistent learning….professional judgment should come into play. • Grades are based on individual achievement, not group achievement.

10. Meaningful… • Effective assessment and grading are based on curricular outcomes • The gradebook system used by the teacher summarizes evidence of academic learning relative to provincial curricular outcomes rather than solely by assessment methods and/or tasks. • Evidence of achievement may include a collection of work that shows growth, progress, and achievement relative to curricular expectations and may be differentiated by student so that each student can best demonstrate his or her learning.

11. Consistent… • Determining a final grade is based on curricular outcomes and involves a teacher’s professional judgment and consideration of all the gathered evidence.

12. IEP/EAL • I am not going to elaborate on this one, because all of the Resource teachers in your buildings have debriefed on this one, and will be your greatest support. We do need to be frank, transparent and succinct however. • Every subject area has an IEP/EAL box, and each teacher may/may not tick off that box on a subject by subject basis, ie: a student may have the IEP box ticked for ELA but not Physical Education. • Students may also have an IEP box ticked off based on Behavior.

13. Academic Achievement

14. Academic Achievement Cont’d • Also included as codes: Grades 1-6 and 7/8 • NA—Not applicable • IN—Incomplete; not enough evidence available to determine a grade Codes Cont’d-9-12: CO—Course complete-Grade 11 and 12 PE/He only IN—Final grade showing insufficient evidence in Grade 11 and 12 PE, and also at teacher’s discretion as an alternative to a failing grade when a plan is in place to complete missing work. This would go in the term column, and Final Grade would remain blank. NE-No exam and NM-No mark if excused from final exam.

15. Assigning Grades • The process of determining a grade to reflect a student’s learning involves a teacher’s professional judgment • The grading scale table in Grades 1-8 and percentage scale 7-12 are linked with the associated level of understanding and application in a subject area. • When determining grades, the teacher analyzes the evidence, noting the most recent and consistent learning

16. Subject Categories… • In grades 1-8 there are 3-4 consistent categories for each Subject ie: Math—Knowledge and Understanding, Mental Math and Estimation and Problem Solving. • The subject categories are not used for reporting at Grades 9-12. However, it is still expected that assessment and reporting at high school be outcomes-based and follow the principles of assessment outlined in this document.

17. Learning Behaviours • The learning behaviors included in the provincial report card help communicate each student’s development in personal management skills, active participation in learning, and social responsibility. • SCALE—Consistently/Usually/Sometimes/Rarely • In grades 1-6 these behaviors are reported once by the classroom teacher with a comment. In grades 7-12 they are reported for every subject.

18. Teacher Comments… • Teacher comments are perhaps the biggest change we may face, and I think at the school base your Principals will be working with you to practice that skill. • They should follow the pattern-Strengths, Challenges and Next Steps. • The should be jargon free, respectful, brief and concise, free of superlatives and absolutes such as “best”, or “always” or “never” and vague words such as “appears to” or “however”, and are congruent with the grading scale.

19. Teacher Comments Cont’d… • Strengths and Learning Goals—should be unique to the learner, specific to the level of achievement relative to the report card and categories, and evidence-based, using evidence from a wide variety of assessment sources. • The do not include summaries of material taught during the term. • There will be a finite amount of space on the report card to fill in comments.

20. Next School Year/Graduation Chart • For grades 1-8 the final report card will clearly indicate the grade the student will enter the following year. Promotion decisions rests with the Principal after consultation with teachers/parents and other specialists. • The Graduation Chart reflects the graduation requirements specific to the school program in which the student is enrolled and helps parents track a student’s course credits as they plan for graduation. NOTE: this feature is not going to be available in the pilot year.

21. Some food for thought… How we assess kids has the potential to engage, motivate and support learning. OR Disengage, de-motivate and harm the learning process.

22. As we all take on this challenge, we do so coming from many different perspectives and comfort zones, and this will very much be a learning year. All we can each do is take small bites of that elephant.Because we all know, assessment is about a lot more than just crunching numbers… “Man drowns attempting to cross river with an average (mean) depth of 3 feet!”

23. Ruth Sutton… • “It is worth noting, right from the start, that assessment is a human process, conducted by and with human beings, and subject inevitably to the frailties of human judgment. However crisp and objective we might try to make it, and however neatly quantifiable may be our “results”, assessment is closer to an art than a science. It is, after all, an exercise in human communication.” • Sutton, R. (1991)